Expand Your Artistic Horizons Online

I'm what is known as a "self taught" artist.  That is to say I never attended art school, although I did take art to "0" level at school in England.

When I worked in traditional media, I learned by doing. I had a bit of natural talent, but it was pretty much touch and go, to say the least.  If it worked, it worked.  If it didn't, it looked crappy, LOL.

When I transitioned into digital media, I discovered that digital artists of all types are accustomed to honing and increasing their technical skills with whichever program they are working in using free online tutorials.  These range from how-to essays with screen shots so you can see how to get a particular effect, to video tutorials.

Floating Orb by Jayne Wilson 2005

It was a great learning experience, allowing me to progress from one of my first renders in Bryce -- the quintessential "floating orb" beloved of so many digital artists (I'm not sure what it is about floating orbs, but we all seem to go through that phase at some point!!)

Winter Mountains by Jayne Wilson 2006

I first discovered LVS Online when I wanted to learn more about how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements. I was thrilled to discover they offered two classes which interested me:  Introduction to Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Elements; Photos in to Art.

Photo Montage created in Photoshop Elements - Jayne Wilson 2004

Both of these courses were instructor-led, six week courses where I received learning materials and homework assignments.  I could then upload my work and have it reviewed by the instructor, who offered help and guidance where needed.

The reason I'm mentioning LVS Online is that it's still going strong.  In addition to learning all about Photoshop Elements, I also took introductory and intermediate courses in Vue -- the program I use when creating my landscapes now.  Those tutorials helped me progress from this:

Early Vue Render - Jayne Wilson 2010

To this - my first render with the full Vue 9 Esprit (versus the freebie Pioneer version I had learned on)

"Lazy River" - Jayne Wilson 2011

LVS Online offers instructor led classes in a wide variety of subjects -- not just graphics software. You can find classes in subjects such as Effective Writing and English Composition, to Medical Terminology and Project Management.

Of particular interest to artists, or wannabe artists, LVS offers a good range of art and photography classes, such as Acrylic Landscape Painting, Acrylic Pet Portrait Painting and Digital Photography, the Basics.  You can get the whole list of classes here.

Instructor led classes begin 6 times a year. Registration is open now for the session starting Feb 25th.

I've signed up for one of the photography classes, to learn more about my camera and to get more comfortable taking it out of AUTO mode!

Finding Time for Art

This post is intended as a bit of a grumble, but I'm fully aware it may turn into a rant!

The problem is time - or lack of it.  I find myself struggling to find time to do all the things I would like to be doing. There just aren't enough hours in the day!

I'm not a full time artist (starving or otherwise).  I have a full time job. One which involves a 90 minute commute to work in the morning, and another 90 minute commute in the evening.

In addition, I have a part time job on an equestrian website, which I thoroughly enjoy.  I can do it at home, in my pajamas if I so wish.

But because of my two jobs, other activities such as chores, gardening, housework and seeing my two retired horses (at least I board them, so I don't have to muck stalls each day) all gets crammed in on the weekend.

And I'm married and certainly don't want to neglect my wonderful husband, so making sure we have some "us" time scheduled is very important to us both.

This doesn't really leave a lot of time for my artistic endeavors such as working on new artwork, or creating greeting cards and other products for my online stores, as well as any marketing efforts I might pursue.

So what I try and do is juggle.

I try and blog regularly, on one of my three blogs -- 3D Designs by Jayne, Jayne's Country Garden and this one, Art by Jayne Wilson.

If I blog on a week night, (like tonight) I don't usually have time to work from scratch in DAZ or Vue, but I might have time to take an artwork that is already finished and create some products with it for my Zazzle store.

On another evening, if I'm feeling artistically inclined, I'll work on a new piece in DAZ, Vue or a combination of the two.  Or I might work on expanding my skills by following a tutorial and try out a new technique.

I try and post to my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/3dDesignsByJayne at least once a day (preferably more often, which I can do from my iPad at lunch time or on the bus going to work in the morning).

The thing I struggle most with is keeping up with the volume of posts in the online art community Fine Art America.  I belong to some very busy groups on there and while I love it when people vote and comment on my artwork, I feel that if I tried to keep up with commenting and voting on every new posting, I would be at it 24/7.

I try and set aside some time when I post a new piece myself, to at least vote and comment on recent additions.  But I admit to feeling guilty that I don't have time to do more.

I'd love to know how other artists manage to find time for family, day jobs, art and everything else.

And the Winner is....

The whole experience of participating in my first art exhibition was very enjoyable.

Everyone I met, from Show Chair, Daniel Brent, to Suzanne Buckland, President of Artists Alive and Well, Patrick Palmer, the Juror for the exhibition, and all the other artists were so nice, friendly, down-to-earth and welcoming, I really felt at ease and the nervousness I had about meeting a group of strangers completely disappeared.

Having my work recognized with an Honorable Mention was more than I expected - you could have knocked me over with a feather!

Artists Alive and Well Juried Open Exhibition

Today was a first for me. 

One of my artworks was accepted into a Juried Art Exhibition, sponsored by Artists Alive and Well, and today was the installation of the various pieces on the Upper Concourse at 1600 Smith Street, in Houston Texas.

I helped check-in the art, making sure that all the art was labelled, was correct and in good condition.  I also got to meet a lot of very talented people I hadn't met before and see some wonderful art.

I've never been involved in anything like this before  and I have to say I was a little nervous the night before.  After all, I was going to be among professional artists and photographers.

And, you know what? I didn't feel intimidated.  Everyone was very nice, very helpful and encouraging and I was made to feel that my contribution to the morning's work was valued.

The artist's reception will be on Monday when the Juror, Patrick Palmer, Chair of the Glassell Studio School and Department of Art History Faculty at the Museum of Fine Arts/Houston, will announce the awards.

The Making of Winter Snowscape

The first 3D art program that I used was Bryce, by DAZ Productions.

My husband Eric introduced me to it and I was thrilled that here was something I could use to create art that the cats couldn't get into and mess up and they seemed to manage to do with other arts and crafts projects!

Eric's sister, Michele, also uses Bryce for her art and I noticed right away that she was a very prolific artist.  This inspired me to learn all I could about the program and start creating in it!

I spent a lot of time over the Christmas season on 2007 listening to Jethro Tull's Christmas Album. It's still one of my favorites but then it was even more special as it had been the first Christmas gift Eric had bought for me, before we were married.  Since he was travelling on business that Christmas (bummer) I listened to that album almost 24/7 as a way of keeping Eric near.

I really loved the cover art of that album. As I listened, I began to wonder if I could recreate the scene, or at least evoke the feel of it, in my newfound obsession, Bryce.

So I started out by opening a scene with the default ground and sky in Bryce.  Then I had to consider where to get or create a building that looked similar to the one on the album cover. Bryce comes with landscape features built-in -- the terrains, atmosphere and texture editors.  But it doesn't have any man made objects - they have to be purchased, or obtained as "freebies" from one of the 3D art content providers.

I found this one as a freebie at 3D Commune, which sadly is no longer online.  I felt it had promise, but obviously, I was going to need to either find or make a texture for it.

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I was able to find a texture that simulated the brickwork.  I still would have to find/make a "snowy" texture for the roof parts and perhaps have some lights glowing at the windows.

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But first I needed to make the scenery look a bit more wintery.  I added some basic mountain terrains and moved them to the back of the scene, and added a snowy texture to the ground plane.

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In this one, you can see I've added some snow to the roof parts of the building.  It gets a little tricky adding textures to these 3D models because you have to identify, out of the hundreds of meshes that make up the whole object, which ones are which.  It's especially difficult if the parts are named in a foreign language.

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Here, I've located all the windows in the mesh and applied a yellow glow and I've also started working on the atmosphere to try and come close, or at least get the same feel, as the inspiration piece.

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I continued to tweak the atmosphere and  I also added some more houses, all objects found free at Renderosity or 3D Commune.

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To add a little more detail to the scene, I added some trees - both pine trees and leafless winter trees - to fill out the scene and make it look more complete.

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I might have decided to call it finished at this point, but I had been doing quite a bit of work in another 3D program, DAZ|Studio, also by DAZ Productions, and it offered me a chance to do something I hadn't been able to do in Bryce up to that point -- add people to my scenes.

Whereas Bryce is specifically for creating digital landscapes, DAZ|Studio is a program in which you can create characters for your scenes by using 3D models to which you add textures and clothing and then pose them. Scenes can be rendered within DAZ|Studio, using a photographic backdrop for the 3D models, or the models themselves can be exported and used in programs such as Bryce and Vue, which is what I did here.

Looking back on this now, I see I changed the atmosphere again.  Not sure I like this version, it's too yellow to my eye, I prefer the previous version, but this was the one I went with in the end.

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I added some more characters, as well as a horse and sleigh (which I really had fun creating in DAZ|Studio) and that was it, finished.

Of course, it's difficult to see the detail in these small images, so you can click on this one to see a larger version of the finished render.

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As I said at the beginning of this post, I was inspired by the cover artwork on Jethro Tull's Christmas Album.

Do you think I captured the essence and feel of it?

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Winter Snowscape Christmas Card by 3DDesignsByJayne
Look at more cards from Zazzle.

What is 3D Art?

One of the difficult things I come up against when discussing my art is that many people have no concept of what 3D art is.

After all, the end result is a 2D image on a computer screen, or if you have it printed, on paper or canvas  -- right?

So where does the "3D" come in?

Let me see if I can give you an idea of how it works. Please note that this is by no means a tutorial on 3D digital artwork. This is just so you know what I mean when I say I create 3D digital artwork.

The following relates to the program I use, Vue, but other 3D programs have the same sort of interface.

Whenever you open a new scene in Vue, the display shows four views of the scene -- Top View, Side View, Front View and Main Camera View. You can click on the image below to see it enlarged.

In to that scene, you load objects - which can be primitive shapes, such as this sphere, but also  terrains, trees, buildings or anything else. Then you use the "gizmos" (the blue, green and red arrows in the above image) to move the objects along the x, y or z axis and position them within the 3D enviroment of Vue. 

That's where the 3D part comes in. In addition to moving the terrains and other objects within the 3D environment on your screen, you can move the camera around and point it in different directions for different points of view.

Once you've loaded an object or terrain, you can apply a texture -- Vue comes with a lot of textures built in, but you can also create your own for a custom work, or purchase textures for use in Vue.

As you work, you can do "test renders" to see how things are progressing since the Main Camera view (bottom right on these images) doesn't give the full detail on work in progress.

As you can see in the image above, the lighting is coming from the right, so the shadows are to the left of the objects.  But the lighting, like the textures, is totally customizable. You can change the atmosphere by loading one of the built-in pre-sets, or by going in to the Atmosphere Editor and changing the angle and direction of the sun, adding cloud layers etc.

And finally, you can set the quality of detail in your final render.  The more detail, the longer the render time.

As I mentioned above, I use, Vue, by E-On Software. It's a very powerful software which offers different levels of functionality, from the hobbyist level to the CG professional - it has been used to create the scenery in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean II, Avatar and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, to name just a few.

I have the middle "artist" level, Vue Esprit, to which I added some extra modules for added bells and whistles. Naturally, shortly after I purchased Vue 9, they came out with Vue 10, which had some new features.  And now they are on Vue 11.  I'm still learning to use Vue 9, an upgrade will have to wait!

If you want to give it a try, you can download a fully functioning Personal Learning Edition - the only down side to the PLE is that after a certain amount of time, it places watermarks on your finished renders, and a logo in the corner.

One thing I didn't mention in the steps above is probably one of the most fun parts of working with Vue - the Ecosystem painter.  I'll show you that in more detail on a future post but for now I will show you a finished work, created from start to finish in Vue, with no filters or other Photoshop tweaking.  I titled this piece "Heartland" and it placed 4th in the Digital/Photography category and 7th in the Overall Winners Category at the Second Annual "Countryside" art competition at Light, Space and Time Online Gallery.

It is on permanent display in the November 2012 Countryside Art Exhibition.